HA HA HA— I clearly jest. Readers from all religious-persuasions and faith-orientation are equally welcome to sup upon my wisdoms. That is, all are equally welcome, save those of the "Cult of Cthulhu." They are tiresome and boring and frequently wander about my waiting room rustling the magazines and making demands for an audience, asserting that they have some sort of "right" to gaze upon me (is this somehow implicit in the 45 words near the headwaters of your Bill for the Rights? While I note that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," I see no requirement or covenant binding the object of religious exercise and adulation. I have scanned your Constitution, Bill for the Rights, Declaration of Independence, United States Code, and several and sundry State and Municipal Ordinances. The sum answer is clear: you are welcome to pray until your jaws cease and blood-clots form in your quaint brains, but your gods are under no obligation to answer.) At any rate, Rob has, in many a colored tone of discussed, referred to these Worshipers of the Elder Gods as "wussy ass fanboys." And, although I see no fans present, I heartily agree with both "wussy" and "ass" as describing these annoying minions, and fully endorses the opalescent orange of Rob's disgust. All creeds are welcome, save the Fanboys for Cthulhu. Wait for the Rising elsewhere, for my waiting room is for others to wait.

But again, I am gripped in a most fearsome glossalaliac wanderlust. Forgive. As with last week, I am in this brief series endeavoring to answer the most commonly posed queries with regards to myself and my being.

Please, to enjoy.

Who you are and why?

r u real

Ah, indeed I am, my dear simian friend. "As real as a pulmonary arrest," as the saying goes. I must admit that the frequency with which reader's queer on this topic is quite perplexing. After all, when all things are considered, many of you, my Constant and Worthy Readers, feel the necessity, despite your familiarity with my writings of advice, to enquire as to whether I exist. Even dearest Rob, who sees me day upon day, working away in my little corner of metropolitan paradise, has felt the need, time and again, to ask "are you real?" in hushed, awed tones. Now, certainly I understand the hush and awe— who would not be hushed and awed in the presence of a Glory like and unto Me?— but the question itself, especially repeated, is a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

And, stranger yet, despite the popular refusal to entertain the notion that I do live and breathe— despite my emphatic liveliness and generally delightful character— I have never yet felt the compulsion to ask you the same. Curious, all around. Are you real?

As to who I am and for what reason: I am Giant Squid, because Giant Squid am I.

Where do they live

I oft times discover that your own, self-proclaimed "encyclopedic" knowledge of the world is a source of much humorous dishyperbole. Most references I surveyed admitted three possible favored habitats for the great and powerful Architeuthes. These were the benthic, temperate coastal and tropical coastal regions. What understatement! There is nary a solitary cubic centimeter on this great blue globe that some quixotic squid might not prefer to call "domicile"— especially with the aid of the many and several specialized environmental suits produced by such corporations as Rand, Hamilton Sundstrand and Paragon SDC. Admittedly, not all of these points and places have yet to see their first and pioneering colonists of squidkind, but I see such developments upon the horizon. Let us set an arbitrary date— perhaps year 2010 After-the-Nailing— and set out this perspective, prognistocatory listing of those places where the Giant Squid Resides:

High Atop the Glass and Steal SkyScrapersThe Polar Ice Caps (both atop and beneath)The Louisiana BayouThe Mongolian SteppesSub-Saharan AfricaWyomingThe Redwood Forests of Cali-o-forniaEarth Moon (both Darkside and Lightside)The Deep Recesses of Thankless, Solitary SpaceJust off the Coast of Miami, where the humans run deep, fat and lazy, and the Taxes might easily be evaded.